Archives for :
June2016

The Post Human Republic – PHR is the second faction I’ll look at here. Hawk again provides some good background here

PHR Logo

. The PHR have been categorised as the Battletech faction of DzC – they have Mechs, lots of them. There is the class 1 mechs – these are the MBT equivalents, 1 for each role of Anti Air, Anti Tank and Anti Infantry. The Type 2 class are the heavy ones, these are categorised as being either command or special weapon variants – they all have some form of passive save (saving throw) making them tough to remove as well. Type 3 are specialised walkers, there are currently 2 variants, one is a fast flanker unit (the Apollo) which can make long range jumps around the battlefield; the other sports a suite of advanced ECMs which degrade enemy to hit rolls depending on how physically close they are to the enemy unit firing. Type 4s are the big daddy Walkers of the PHR – there are 2 variants, one Command (Nemesis) and the other a Heavy (Hades) option – both inspire utter dread for opponents when they are on the field due to the number of hit points they have, their range, and their firepower!. The PHR also sport some limited skimmers as well but they are slower than the Scourge and the Shaltari.

The Good:

Most of their units have multiple hit points.

Some real versatility in their battlegroups – e.g. you can mix Anti Air and Anti-Tank walkers in the same Squads of a Battlegroup!

Psychologically, they can be very daunting to fight against – the reputation of the PHR is one of a faction who is hard to get off the table, especially when they bring a Hades!

Some of the best infantry choices in the game! Siren (one of the best CQB units in the game!), Valyeries (fastest infantry in the game so far, and they count as scouts!), Medusas (anti-infantry and Anti-Tank all for 100 points!?! Yes please!), Immortal Long Reach Teams (snipers) and Immortals – each has a speecialised role and they all perform them wonderfully!

The latest release has brought some really good new units to the fore – from the Thor bombard to the Angelos A2 flame thrower capable troop transport skimmers!

Despite some modification, the PHR command deck is still considered one of the strongest, and for good reason; it has cards in it allowing you to force enemy units to conduct friendly fire or prevent movement!

Passive Saves on Type 2 Walkers make them really very tough!

The Bad:

Anti-Air options – the PHR struggles in the anti-air options game, both in terms of cost and options at present they have 2 dedicated AA units (the Phobos Type 1 walker, and the Helios support skimmers), they have a couple of multi role options here too namely infantry (basic Immortals, Janus scout walkers and the costly Athena Air Superiority Fighter).

Some units are now almost defunct in terms of their usefulness – notably the Mencht Anti-Infantry walker – its just too short ranged and slow to get where its needed and then do anything effectively; and the Tanaris MLRS heavy choice (too short ranged and a third of the time fails to even have a demolisher capability).

Poor building demolition – the PHR have really suffered in this field; on release they were considered strong at it with the Enyo and Tanaris heavy options, both of which sported Demolisher; as the game progressed though the other factions caught up and then surpassed the PHR in this capability, both in terms of cost per units capable of it, number of shots per capable unit and lack of new capable units for the PHR.

The Ugly:

PHR is the slowest faction in the game – and in a game where the focus is on speed and ability to deploy around the field quickly and effectively, that’s a real worry! Most PHR units will need a dropship to be effective, and PHR dropships are not cheap either!

PHR are almost always numerically outnumbered, this is true in firepower and units on the field. Given the number of high strength shots they have on units, the number of damage points each unit has, and the reasonably good armour the units have, this is not a surprised, but does mean when you miss, it hurts!

Weakest faction in the game in terms of air power – lets be honest, drop ships aside, the PHR do the worst at this. Their current options for aircraft are the: Mercury Drones (not armed, not fast, but do help with searching for objectives, and holding Focus Points (they are unique at this for aircraft), and are scouts), the Athena Air Superiority Fighter (very expensive, can only fire one of its 3 weapon options a turn), and currently the Triton-X (technically a dropship for the Medusa – and you need the Medusa to include one in your army), but can do some limited gunship duty. Hawk plan to add in an Assault Dropship (basically a Poseidon heavy dropship, with less carry capacity, but with missile launchers and will be called the Njord) in the next few weeks. Ultimately though the faction is really weak here.

First purchases – assuming you have the starter box army, my recommendation is that the first pickups should be:

Zeus – your commander – I’d choose the Zeus over the Nemesis for a couple of reasons; the first is you can add in Odins to the same squad. This is a massive benefit as the Odin and the Zeus combined provides a unit which, once in position is just horrific to remove and painful to expose yourself to.

A second starter box – this will give you much needed dropships (plus for the cost of 3 dropships bought seperately, this get you those plus much needed extra tanks and infantry!)

2 Blisters of Triton A1s – I can’t stand the Juno APCs the PHR have, they are slow, have the same carry capacity as light dropships and frankly contribute little that the faction hasn’t got in spades elsewhere. The Triton A1s give the infantry much needed mobility.

2 blister of Odins – You’ll want 1 from 1 blister for going with the Zeus and you want a couple for sticking in a heavy group with a Neptune to cause merry hell for enemy ground forces.

2 Blisters of Apollos – the Apollo is flanker unit with 2 variants (anti-Infantry and Anti Tank) regardless these are fast and can help get to back table units like Ferrums or get to late game Focus Points.

1 Blister of Helios – these will give you some much needed additional Anti-Air units.

1 Blister of Valkyries – some Scouts to improve range for command cards.

Command Deck – same as UCM really, these help the army.

That will generally push you up to about 1500 points with a commander factored in – the usual size of a game (leftovers here will be 1 Neptune, 4 bases of Immortals, 4 Type 1 walkers, 1 Odin, 1 Zeus, 4 Juno APCs):

So I won’t linger on that, but I will discuss the good, the bad and the ugly for the UCM.

The Good:

Most balanced faction in terms of – good armour, average/slow mobility, good firepower.

Has the most air power of all factions (Ferrum drones, light gunship (Falcon), heavy gunship (Eagle), interceptor (Archangel), bombers (Seraphim and Retaliator) , Command (Phoenix))

Most versatile basic AA unit – the humble Rapier – it has 2 modes of fire, reasonable speed and good armour . It lets you get into someones face and shutdown air corridors and causes havoc for skimmers. Cherish it.

Financially, the UCM will cost you less than some factions as its one of the two factions in the starter box.

The Bad:

Infantry – whilst they now have more specialised options, (Legionnaires, Praetorians, Snipers, Hazard Suits, Mortar Teams and Flak teams) they have no solid answer to the other races CQB specialists. This means if the UCM troops get caught in a building by the other races CQB specialists, then you can kiss them goodbye in most cases.

UCM tanks – whilst they have reasonable speed (4″/6″), good armour (9/10), and reasonable guns (E9/10) they mostly have 1 hit point, this means in battles of attrition against hard to hit skimmer armies such as the Scourge or Shaltari, or against the multi hit-point armies of the PHR, they will suffer more – not disproportionately more, but enough that you will want to make constant use of cover.

Drop capacity – not a massive issue but when you have squads with 3/6/9 options in terms of models per squad you quickly find that to bring blocks of 6, you need 2 medium dropships and a squad of 9 needs a heavy dropship, or you are driving on. This is only really viable for the light tanks in the faction (Fireblade and Katana) otherwise you are limited to a top speed of 6″ on roads and then, with no shooting. Additionally, like other races light drop ships, you can only carry 2 bases of infantry per dropship; unfortunately while you can stick 2 bases of Legionnaires on a Raven, its a poor option compared to what the other races can manage with basic troops in those dropships.

The Ugly:

Scout options – you either have to take a Ferrum Drone base (and why wouldn’t you for a great AA/AT unit , downside is that if your oppo has brought good Anti Air, you will lose those drones fast, and if they get the Ferrum itself, you lose all the drones immediately!), Praetorian Snipers (unless you plan to turtle in a building, these guys need a drop ship and a willingness to never shoot to be useful here), or Wolverines. Scouts are important – they extend your command radius for card usage, and they act as spotters for the artillery (Kodiak and Longbows).

Heavy options – currently the UCM have only 2 heavy tank options – The Gladius and the Scimitar. Both of them are slow, and compared to the other faction heavy choices both feel quite stilted in comparison. The Scimitar’s laser can shut down a lane but once its on the table, don’t expect it to do much other than sit there and hit a couple of buildings or the odd poorly placed opponent’s tank. The Gladius, again, really slow but with a drop ship, it can at least get forward to do some good. Overall though they are just not filling a niche that the UCM have covered elsewhere.

Command Deck – whilst this has improved since the game was first released, I’d still personally argue that it feels like the weakest deck out of all the races. The options they added in, have certainly added more punch (which was badly needed), they will still struggle to find solid situations to deploy them well.

First purchases – assuming you have the starter box army, my recommendation is that the first pickups should be:

Kodiak – your commander – a reasonable all round choice now – plus it gives you an artillery shot with a blast radius if your have scouts that can spot for it – or a very inaccurate blast if you don’t.

A second starter box – this will give you much needed dropships (plus for the cost of 3 dropships bought seperately, this get you those plus much needed extra tanks and infantry!)

Then 2 blisters of Katanas (6 of them in total) – this is a personal choice for me – Katanas are fast, slightly less durable than Sabres but have double the number of shots – also you can drive them on! (Find rules for these in the reconquest book).

1 blister of Falcon gunships – these give you some good fast AT mobility which are also now really hard to hit, ideally you want 2 of them in an army (and you get 2 in a blister iirc)

A Ferrum – its rare to see a UCM list missing one of these since they hit ground and air targets hard, and act as good spotters for the commander thanks to the drones being classed as scouts! (Find rules for these in the reconquest book).

Command Deck – not really necessary, but can be sometimes helpful – plus if you don’t have one, your opponents may well moan as you are crippling their armies – plus its necessary for competitve play.

That will generally push you up to about 1500 points with a commander factored in – the usual size of a game (and some left over models – 6 Sabres, 2 Condor Medium Dropships):